Always Good to Get a Slam in on Kentucky

Matthew Yglesias observes:

Just saw Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) on TV warning that the stimulus plan will “turn America into Western Europe.” Terrifying.
…
Western Europe has its pros and cons relative to the United States and since it represents a diversity of different policy environments it doesn’t even really make sense to talk about adopting “European” policies. Still, it strikes me as odd that conservatives seem so convinced that a set of countries whose populations are healthier and longer-lived, and where dramatically fewer children grow up in poverty, is somehow obviously a dystopian nightmare. Indeed, even at the time when living standards really were clearly higher in the United States and tons of Europeans were eager to move here, the people of old continent were hardly clamoring to get into the glamorous world of Kentucky.

Oh bluegrass snapitude!

Now if McConnell was truly worried that this country might be transformed into Somalia or even The Democratic Paradise of Iraq, then I could at least understand his alarm. But saying you fear becoming like Western Europe (!) just isn’t going to frighten anyone except the wingnut base-of-ignorance that routinely worries about the strangest (and often non-existent) things. But hey, that’s why they are coming increasingly irrelevant as more and more people see that these guys are just nuts.